L2/16-073 2016-03-31
Preliminary proposal to encode the Lampung script in Unicode
Anshuman Pandey [email protected]
March 31, 2016
1 Introduction
This is a preliminary proposal to encode the ‘Lampung’ script in the Unicode standard. This document presents a tentative character repertoire, representative glyphs, and encoding model. Information on the following issues is sought:
1. Encodability Lampung has some affinity with Rejang (U+A930..A95F). A comparison of the two scripts is given in tables 1–3). Additional research is required for determining issues of separately encoding Lampung or unifying it with the Rejang block.
2. Character repertoire Are there characters that should be included in the proposed repertoire beyond those shown here?
3. Character names Are character names acceptable? The name for the letter 倓 requires attention. It is given the value gha in some sources, but its pronunciation is more proximate to /gra/. Should the lettter be named or ?
4. Stylistic variants vs. alternate forms Historical and modern sources show several variant forms of consonant letters. Some of these may be considered stylistic variants, while others may be true alter- nate forms. It may be practical to encode some variants as separate characters.
5. Representative glyphs Are the representative glyphs acceptable?
6. Digits Several Indonesian websites show a full set of Lampung digits. They do not occur in the manuscript sources that were consulted for this proposal. Are they historically attested or are they new inventions?
7. Punctuation Various sources show what appear to be distinctive marks that correspond to Latin punc- tuation marks. Do these marks occur in manuscript sources? Are they modern innovations?
Feedback on this information is requested from experts and users of the script. Additional source materials are also requested. A formal proposal is forthcoming.
1 Preliminary proposal to encode the Lampung script in Unicode Anshuman Pandey
Figure 1: The location of Lampung province in Sumatra, Indonesia. Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lampung_in_Indonesia.svg)
2 Background
The Lampung (倎倅借倃倕倜 ) script is used in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is also known as aksara lampung and had lampung. Lampung is based upon the Brahmi model and is related to other scripts of South Sumatra. The script is currently used. It is promoted by a mandate for preserving the Lampung language and script, and is taught in primary schools (see Suri 2015). It is used in official insignia and signage in Lampung province. There has been an effort to develop optical-character recognition software for Lampung (see Junaidi, et al, 2011, 2013). The script was described by Christopher Miller in Unicode Technical Note #35 “Indonesian and Philippine Scripts and Extensions”.
3 Script Details
3.1 Structure
Lampung is an alphasyllabary that is written from left to right. The only independent vowel letter is , which has the default value /a/ and functions as a vowel carrier. Vowels are represented using dependent combining signs. These signs are written with the vowel carrier for independent forms of vowels. Each consonant possesses the inherent vowel /a/. The inherent vowel is changed by applying a vowel sign to a consonant. Vowel signs may occur above, below, and to the right of a consonant. The script has a mark for silencing the inherent vowel. However, the is not used for producing conjuncts and has no control properties. Instead, consonant clusters are represented as atomic ligatures. The final consonants nga and h are represented using combining signs.
The structures of Lampung orthographic syllables are:
Vcarrier [Vsign] [Csign]
C [ [Vsign] [Csign] | [Mvirama]]
2 Preliminary proposal to encode the Lampung script in Unicode Anshuman Pandey
3.2 Approach
Lampung may be considered a ‘proper script’ as well as a ‘class of scripts’. In terms of the latter, there are several varieties of the script attested in numerous manuscripts, which differ primarily in the shapes of certain letters and vowel signs. These varieties are not separate scripts and may be considered styles of Lampung. The case is similar to the Landa and Sindhi scripts of South Asia (see discussion in L2/10-011R). For these there are regional variations of letterforms, but they belong typologically to the same family. The proposed block for Lampung encodes the modern form of the script. The historical styles are unified with the block and may be represented using fonts.
3.3 Character repertoire
The proposed ‘Lampung’ block contains 20 consonant letters, 7 combining vowel signs, 4 consonant signs, and 1 virama. Character names are aligned with those of Rejang characters in Unicode. Representative glyphs for characters are based upon forms used in manuscripts and have been designed by the proposal author.
4 Proposed Encoding
4.1 Consonants
There are 20 consonant letters:
Character name Value
倀 /k/
倁 /g/
倂 /ŋ/
倃 /p/, /f/
倄 /b/
倅 /m/
倆 /t/
倇 /d/
倈 /n/
倉 /t͡ ʃ/
倊 /d͡ ʒ/
個 /ɲ/
倌 /j/
倍 /a/, Ø
3 Preliminary proposal to encode the Lampung script in Unicode Anshuman Pandey
倎 /l/
倏 /r/
倐 /s/, /z/
們 /w/
倒 /h/, /kh/
倓 /gr/
Each consonant letter has the inherent vowel /a/. The inherent vowel is changed by the addition of a depen- dent vowel sign (see section 4.2) or silenced using the virama (see section 4.4).
The 倍 is a vowel carrier. When a combining vowel sign is attached to it, the letter adopts the phonetic value of the sign and represents an independent vowel.
The letter 倓 is given the value ‘ ’ in modern charts. However, it represents the sound /gr/, not the aspirated /ɡʱ/. A more appropriate name may be ‘ ’.
There are variant forms of several letters (see figures 6–9):
Regular Variant